By Ginny McCabe
Red Brush Christian Church in Louisville, Illinois, has a successful youth training program called “Step Forward: Teach Them to Follow. Teach Them to Lead.”
The program is intentionally raising up students to be leaders in the church. It’s also teaching them to make disciples. As a result, many of the youth go on to Bible college or pursue full-time ministry.
“We try to teach them to follow Christ, and that’s what we focus on in their spiritual life,” said Penny Arnold, children’s minister at Red Brush Christian Church and supervisor of the “Step Forward” program.
Arnold has served as the children’s minister at Red Brush Christian Church for six years. Prior to taking a position at the church, she worked in education for 25 years as a teacher and a principal. She was a church member for years and volunteered as a dedicated youth leader before becoming the children’s minister.
“Step Forward” initially got started a few years ago as a “fluke” after her niece, Kay Hammond, who just graduated from high school, came to her and said, “We need something more. We need to be serving more. We need to be doing more.”
“I said okay, if you want to come up with something, see if you can find some other kids, and you can come out to my house to talk, plan, and think of something. She was thinking we could do something to help the children’s ministry. I said that’s great. There were 13 of them that came out. They were junior high and high school kids. She led the meeting, and they started talking. I remember, I sat back, and I was just letting them go. They came up with the name, and they came up with this idea that they would adopt the children’s ministry,” Arnold said.
She said they started small and have kept building and growing the program. Now, the program is in its sixth year, and 76 kids have been part of the “Step Forward” program.
“Out of those 76, we’ve had nine kids go to Bible college. This year, we sent four to Bible college, and we already had another one in Bible college at Ozark. So, we’ve had some kids going into full-time ministry because they learned to serve in the church, and they had people mentoring, and speaking into them, and helping them, and encouraging them,” Arnold said.
Arnold, who oversees the program, began teaching kids how to serve and giving them opportunities, and Gary Barbee, the student minister at the time, taught a discipleship class.
“We worked together so well, and we realized kids need to have their people in church. Just like at school, kids need to have their people. They also need to have a teacher, coach, or somebody, and they need to have a positive connection with an adult,” Arnold said.
To have a program like this, staff has to be working together, and they have to get to know the kids, she said. It’s not a silo ministry concept, it has to be people working together to do this.
“You need to have some people involved that will pour into the kids,” Arnold said.
“Step Forward” is a discipleship and leadership program, but it also gives students the confidence to be strong leaders.
“It’s not good enough just to attend church, they have to lead in the church. That way, they are making disciples of other people,” Arnold said. “Through that, we are getting a lot of kids going into Bible college, and full-time ministry. However, we also have kids that are just staying with us. We wanted to counteract the statistic, where 75 to 85 percent of all college kids leave the church. So, we were like how do we keep them and try to fight this to keep our kids?”
Arnold said it’s a model to be celebrated. As the students are doing this, it’s motivating the adults to do more, too.
“We do try to encourage them and teach them. So, if you’re in college, you are to connect with or mentor high school students, and the older high school students are supposed to connect with the younger high school students, and the younger high school students connect with a junior high student, and the junior high student gets to pick a third, fourth, or fifth grader,” Arnold said. “It’s connecting with them at church, checking on them, and asking how things are going? How’s church? How’s school? It’s mentoring. It’s really more of a connection and creating relationships with people in the church.”
Kids receive the tools and training they need to serve in various roles. There’s also a “Big Overnighter” for 3rd-6th graders at Oil Belt Christian Service Camp led by the high school students. About 300 kids are in attendance.
“One of the concepts the kids had at the beginning was they wanted more people serving,” Arnold said. “So, the kids said we are going to ‘Step Forward’ and we’re going to be an example. They took 1 Timothy 4:12 to heart, and said we are going to set an example for other believers. They started working, and they went to town.”
As a result of “Step Forward,” there are students that preach, and some of them are on a worship team. Other students are on the welcome team, or they work in children’s ministry.
“It’s been a breath of fresh air for the church,” Arnold said. “It’s all about creating student leaders.”
Other churches can implement a similar program with their young people. Arnold has received calls from other churches, and she advises them to “start small.”
“This is a long-game ministry. It’s not a short game,” she said.
Red Brush Christian Church is a medium-sized, rural church in a town of 1,200 people. The congregation size is about 500 and the church has continued to see growth every year. The church was founded in 1890.
“The church has had a strong youth program for years,” Arnold said. “Years ago, the church said they were going to be a church for youth. No matter what it took for the youth, that they would support it, and a lot of our growth has come through youth programs and having things for young families.”
Ginny McCabe is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, media professional, speaker and teacher.
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